Friday, December 21, 2007

Huckabee & the 'Persecuted' Christians

By Robert ParryDecember 21, 2007

Editor’s Note: To understand Mike Huckabee’s surprising rise to the top of the Republican presidential field, it’s worth looking back two years to December 2005 when the right-wing media manufactured an alarming tale about how secularists and non-Christians were waging a “War on Christmas.”

Huckabee – in his unthreatening, easy-going style – has managed to tap into that now widely perceived view among white Christian conservatives that they are somehow facing persecution at the hands of Jews, Muslims and atheists.

2 comments:

I have worked retail for about ten years. A few years ago I had a customer go nuts on me for saying Merry Christmas. This year they have gotten upset at me for saying Happy Holidays! I just finished reading the book Kingdom Coming by Michelle Golberg it is an wonderful book on the influence of the Christian right .

I remember much anger over Christmas, being turned into a season of forced buying. I sung a caricature of Jingle Bells, to "Buy. Buy Buy. Buy buy buy, buy buy all the way. Oh what buy . . .

None of the cooperate media was happy about the anti-buy rebellion, the right wing media changed to tune to the "War against Christmas" which the entire cooperate media found preferable to "don't buy".

Affirmative action can be a problem. A company employing only 30 year old males could hire one gay black female both mentally and physically challenged senior citizen and sit her by a desk doing nothing all day and partially meet a bunch of quotas. The same with college scholarship. The not quite poor face a huge problem going to college, and again the right offers a non solution.

So progressives complain about a bunch of prejudged people instead of acknowledging the problems and trying to suggest better solutions

Incidentally the progressive stanch that "the war on terror is hype", won't due either. Kucinich and Edwards should somewhat frequently acknowledge that to disenfranchised people "I ain't going to take it anymore "suicidal antics can look inspiring whether at Columbine and Virginia Tech or organized mayhem by al Qaida. Then point out that where positive hope is available such as by Hugo Chavez, suicide doesn't look like victory in Latin America. Then they should constantly point out threat of danger is real but the more we can keep it a crime issue rather than a political and military one the better off we'll be in the long run.

If Bush was praised when he apologized for Abu Ghraib, in Jordan, instead of all the comments about Bush looking small and the King of Jordan looking tall, Guantanamo would be closed by now. In the summer of 2004 when there was a cease fire in Fuluja and Republicans were talking about getting out before the election. It might have happened had not Kerry had a campaign ad about terrorists hiding in Fuluja, and Bush responding by demanding al Sadr's arrest. Unfortunately, had the war in Iraq ended quickly, we would be in the middle of a war with Cuba by now. Nevertheless, by not praising Bush's immigration policy, progressives are aiding jingoism.

Hukabee is more peaceful than the other Republics and so is Ron Paul. Unfortunately the war against the poor started by Ronald Reagan when he wooed previously very progressive Catholics and Jews to be more Conservative and Clinton devastated the unions, and pulled the rug out from under the poor, but his progressive cultural agenda made Gays and Woman less concerned with poverty issues. So now Ron Paul adding to this, wooing antiwar activists to stop worrying about poverty could make the war against the poor very nasty indeed.